| Summary: | Objective:To assess the relationship between routine blood values recorded before fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) and final diagnosis in patients whose diagnoses could not be confirmed with FNAB, necessitating surgical excisional biopsy (SEB) as a second invasive procedure.Method:The data of patients who could not be diagnosed via FNAB and who underwent SEB of the cervical lymph node between March 2014 and March 2019 in the otolaryngology department of a research hospital were evaluated retrospectively. According to the definitive diagnosis determined by SEB, the cases were divided into 3 groups as follows: 1) benign, 2) other malignancies, 3) lymphoma.Results:The frequency of males in the other malignancies group was significantly higher compared to the other two groups (p=0.007). Compared to the other two groups, C-reactive protein levels were statistically significantly lower in the benign group (p=0.001). Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) in the lymphoma group was significantly higher than in the other groups (p<0.001) and ESR was found to have 70.21% sensitivity, 75.76% specificity and 73.97% accuracy to discriminate lymphoma from other tumors with a cut-off point of >35.5 mm/hr (area under the curve= 0.784, 95% confidence interval: 0.708-0.861, p<0.001).Conclusion:Although ESR is non-specific for the diagnosis of lymphoma in asymptomatic patients, it may be a supportive marker to reduce repetitive invasive procedures in symptomatic patients who may require cervical lymph node biopsy for diagnosis.
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